A large and growing population of users enjoy entertainment through the consumption of digital media items, such as music, movies, images, electronic books, and so on. Users employ various electronic devices to consume such media items. Among these electronic devices are electronic book readers, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable media players, tablet computers, netbooks, and the like. These electronic devices wirelessly communicate with a communications infrastructure to enable the consumption of the digital media items.
FIG. 1 illustrates a front side of a conventional user device 105 having a display 115. The user device 105 includes an antenna 110 disposed within a housing of the user device and above or below the display 115. The antenna 110 is typically constructed of metal and disposed on dielectric member that is disposed within the user device 105. The display 115 is typically mounted to a support member to hold the display 115 in the user device 105. The dielectric material can be disposed behind the support member of the display 115, however, the dielectric material adds to the thickness of the user device 105. In order to not add to the thickness of the conventional user device 105, the front cover 112 of user device 105 includes a space above and a space below the display 115 where the dielectric member, upon which the antenna 110 is disposed, can be housed. The space between the display 115 and the top of the user device 105 is labeled as W2, and the space between the display 115 and the bottom of the user device 105 is labeled as W3. By disposing the antenna 110 above or below the display 115 in W2 or W3, instead of on a dielectric member behind the display 115, the overall height and/or width of the user device 105 increases, or effectively reduces the size of the display 115 that can be used in the user device 105. Some conventional user devices use the space above or the space below the display to dispose other mechanical components of the user device, such as a speaker, a mechanical button, or the like.
In one conventional user device, the antenna 110 is a slot antenna formed of conductive material on the dielectric material that is disposed above, below, or behind the display. Conductive material can be disposed on the dielectric material, and a portion of the conductive material can be removed to form a slot opening (also referred to as holes, apertures, or slot cut outs). Alternatively, the slot antenna may be constructed as a conductive trace on a printed circuit board, the slot opening being formed by the conductive trace. The printed circuit board is disposed above, below, or behind the display. Slot antennas typically operate at frequencies between 300 MHz and 24 GHz, and have radiation patterns that are roughly omnidirectional. The slot antennas, having single slot openings, however, are typically considered to have a narrow bandwidth due to the discontinuities of the current flow within the limited space of the slot opening. Since single slot antennas typically have a narrow bandwidth, single slot antennas may not be suitable for some wireless network applications, such as 3G applications.